Jack Daniel's Distillery Tours

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With its distinctive, sweet and mellow flavor and iconic square bottle and black label, Jack Daniel’s is one of America's most identifiable alcoholic spirits. Located in Tennessee, the distillery that makes, ages and bottles Jack Daniel’s whiskey has become a tourist attraction in its own right, drawing in visitors from across the region. For whiskey lovers in particular, touring the Jack Daniel’s distillery on a visit to Tennessee or northern Alabama is a must.

Location

The Jack Daniel’s distillery is located in Lynchburg, Tennessee, only a few miles from Tims Ford State Park in south-central Tennessee. Lynchburg is 75 miles from Nashville and 80 miles from Chattanooga. However, its proximity to the Alabama state line makes the closest city Huntsville, Alabama, which is less than 50 miles away.

Types

Choose between two basic ways of touring the Jack Daniel’s distillery. The first is to drive there yourself. Jack Daniel’s conducts guided tours every day, except the major holidays of Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas, New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. The alternative is let someone else do the driving and join a mini-bus tour from Nashville. Tours of this type include pick-up and drop-off from your hotel and may or may not include other stops in Lynchburg.

Features

Tours of the Jack Daniel’s distillery introduce visitors to the entire process of making Tennessee whiskey, including fermenting the mash, distillation, aging and bottling. The history of Jack Daniel’s is explained along the way, and that history is quite expansive as the distillery was first licensed in 1866. However, tastings or free samples of whiskey are not part of the tour, because Lynchburg is, ironically, positioned in a dry county. The only alcohol you will receive on a Jack Daniel’s distillery tour is from breathing the vapors of the fermenting mash.

Warning

Although tours are held every day excepting major holidays, parts of the distillery are closed on particular days, so the tours held on these days are really only partial tours. The bottling plant is closed every Sunday per Tennessee state law, and the distillery is not on the tour on other major holidays, such as the Fourth of July and Labor Day. To get the most of your distillery tour, avoid going on Sundays and major holidays in general.

Misconceptions

Jack Daniel’s is a Tennessee whiskey and not bourbon whiskey. The most substantial difference between the two products is that Jack Daniel’s is filtered through sugar maple charcoal prior to aging in a scorched oak barrel. This process, called "mellowing" by the Jack Daniel’s distillery, imparts flavors particular to Jack Daniel’s. What constitutes bourbon whiskey is defined by federal law, and the sugar maple charcoal filtering is not a part of that statutorily defined procedure.